


A Lie of Good Purpose

by KittenKin



Category: Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-18
Updated: 2019-02-18
Packaged: 2019-10-30 12:30:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17828609
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KittenKin/pseuds/KittenKin
Summary: I basically just wrote this out of spite. *shrug*





	A Lie of Good Purpose

Stephen Strange viewed 14,000,605 possible futures to the confrontation on Titan. He answered, “one” when Tony Stark asked him how many of those possibilities ended in victory. It was a lie of good purpose.

He saw 8,204,456 possible paths to take that would lead to Thanos being defeated before he could fulfill his short-sighted dream. 2,982,014 of those would stop Thanos before he could even get his hands on the Mind Stone.

The problem was what happened after.

He watched the stones fall into various hands. Governments, military organizations, religious groups; the world burned no more than three years into the future. Private hands and public faces, curious hands and insatiable genius, good hands and even better intentions. The end came within eight months at the utmost.

Captain America.

Tony Stark.

Himself.

Stephen flinched the visions away and moved on.

The stones left Earth. She still crumbled. The stones traveled from realm to realm. Worlds were left charred in their wake. The stones scattered to the furthermost edges of the universe. A being with a vision began to gather them together again. Sometimes it was even Thanos.

Stephen threw away 8,204,456 victories and began to consider 5,796,149 defeats. He threw away 5,002,795 possibilities in which Thanos tasted victory, and peace, and was remembered as one who had done that which could not be undone.

793,354 paths that began with Thanos’s victory, but did not end with it.

Stephen saved as many as could be saved, then frowned at the number of options he had left, still. He looked again at the primary pieces on the board; who they were, why they fought, what they wished for. He watched Natasha Romanov bleed out, stand up, fall down, and hide. He watched T’Challa die, over and over again. He watched Bruce Banner laugh at his enemies and at himself, and cry in the half-shadows under a table like a frightened little boy.

He watched Captain America fight, and fight, and fight. His eyes tightened under a frown.

He watched Tony Stark sacrifice himself, over and over, for someone, anyone, everyone. His jaw clenched against nausea stirring low in his chest.

He watched himself misdirect and manipulate and make decisions for other people just as he was doing in this endless moment. Well…that was as it was. He shrugged that off and considered.

Fourteen million futures; he’d gotten to know the key architects rather intimately, albeit in an abstract way. Stephen threw away the paths in which Bruce Banner lived as a hunted animal. The good doctor deserved better. He granted James Barnes safety as well; they would have need of him later. The same for T’Challa, and then eighty-two others of importance to the future he was attempting to secure.

248,720.

Stephen was down to small variations on a theme. One Ross getting shot in the shoulder and being forced into retirement. Another Ross suffering from hemorrhoids five years down the road. He saved Everett and left Thaddeus to his fate and doughnut-shaped cushions. He reviewed the heroes and dreamers and fighters and lovers again, and chose to give them what health and happiness he could, because why not? He’d always enjoyed playing God.

42.

He had to narrow it down to one. Forty-two paths, each one as good as the next in the grand scheme of things, but they could only follow one. He had to say that there was only one, so that they’d listen to him. He might as well choose a happy ending for himself, too.

There were eighteen invitations to dinner that he’d find the opportunity to extend, and twelve would be accepted. Nine restaurants that would lead to a moonlit walk, and six conversations that would end in bed. Five mornings after that would secure him a second dinner date. Two proposals that would be shot down, and one that he would accept with a surprising humility making his hands shake anew.

Stephen opened his eyes.


End file.
